THE SWASTIKA

The swastika, hackenkreuz, gamma cross, gammadion, St. Brigid's cross, or fylfot cross is
a symbol found around the world. It not universally drawn either
clockwise or counterclockwise, and it occurs in both curved and squared forms.

This postcard, copyright 1907 by E. Phillips, a U.S. card publisher, speaks for
the universally high regard in which the swastika was held as a good luck token
before use by the Nazis corrupted its meaning.

The text on the card back reads:

GOOD LUCK EMBLEM

"The Swastika" is the oldest cross and emblem in the world. It
forms a combination of four "L's" standing for Luck, Light, Love and Life. It has
been found in ancient Rome, excavations in Grecian cities, on Buddhist idols, on
Chinese coins dated 315 B.C., and our own Southwest Indians use it as an amulet.

It is claimed that the Mound Builders and Cliff Dwellers of Mexico, Central
America consider "The Swastika" a charm to drive away evil and bring good luck,
long life and prosperity to the possessor.

It should be noted that this text is not entirely accurate: The Mound Builders
inhabited the Ohio River Valley and the Cliff Dwellers lived in the Southwestern
United States; however, both did use the swastika, as did the Mayas of Mexico.
Furthermore, although the swastika may look like four "L's" to one who uses the
Roman alphabet, in Greek it forms four Gammas ("G's"), in Hebrew it can be seen
as four Daleths ("D's"), and among the non-literate people of North America, it
corresponded to no letters at all. Thus the ascription of Luck, Light, Love, and
Life to the amulet is simply an English mnemonic, although it is prettily
reinforced on this card by images of a
horseshoe (luck), the rising
Sun (light), twin hearts (love), and Earth (life). Finally, not
mentioned in the text is the swastika's use as the specific emblem of
Ganesha, the
Hindu god of good luck, who is also represented as an
elephant.

At left is a very nice American-made beaded item from the 1920s
that bears the initials
J.B.Y. and a black swastika on a white background. It is a simple
strap-woven seed-bead piece of the type often made for a merit badge by
Girl and Boy Scouts, or, as in this case, woven on a "while you wait"
basis by American Indians for tourists at places like the Fred Harvey hotel
chain in Arizona and New Mexico. It was found in an estate collection of
Native American bead-work that had been put away and wrapped in
1929-dated newspapers. The twisted cotton threads terminate in a brass
pin for hanging.

The use of the swastika in domestic ornament was fairly common in the
19th century. I have seen a beautiful white wedding dress, circa 1900,
covered all over with embroidered swastikas. It came from the trousseau
of a Polish-German immigrant woman, a "mail-order-bride" who was married
in the U.S.

The swastika or hackencreuz was not a Nazi symbol
originally, but was adopted by them as a "lucky" logo. (Imagine a
political party of butchering madmen adopting the four-leaf clover as
their symbol!) Some people believe that the swastika
has been permanently co-opted or ruined by its brief
appropriation by the Nazis -- who stood it up diagonally and
placed it in a circle rather than running it four-square,
and gave it their brand-logo colour scheme of black, white,
and red, thus making THEIR swastika a national seal,
unlike the non-Nazi swastikas of varied colour and form one
finds all around the world.

It is a common misconception, almost an urban
legend of sorts, to impute directional or positional
preference or meaning to the swastika, and to claim that
the Nazis "reversed the swastika" or "rotated it backwards"
and therefore rendered it "evil." But this idea that directionality
is important in the history of swastika usage is demonstrably
untrue: counter-balancing (bilaterally
symmetrical) arrays of clockwise and counterclockwise swastikas are
common in both ancient and modern Indian art.

I believe that these considerations concerning the left- and
right-turning swastika arose after the Nazis
adopted the device -- and were part of a failed
attempt to salvage at least a part of its former
meaning by establishing a "good swastika versus
bad swastika" dichotomy. Unfortunately, this
swastika purity restoration attempt failed because
ancient monuments and steles do not bear the
theory out: The swastika appears in both left- and
right-turned models in virtually all past cultures
with no "deosil" and "widdershins" thought behind
the direction, nor with "good" or "evil" concepts
attached. The Nazis tipped the swastika up on end
(diagonally), but it is even found that way in
some old historical artifacts as well, such as this
lovely example of the lucky swastika -- an
embossed and airbrushed American postcard of the
1905 - 1910 era, bearing the legend "To Darling
Baby," accompanied by a lavender swastika and a bunch of
Lily-of-the-Valley flowers.

Some people believe that the display of any sort
of swastika should be forbidden because it is
offensive to Jews. From first-hand experience, i
can assure you that dozens of elderly German Jews
i personally know who lived through or escaped the
holocaust, were and are well aware that the
swastika pre-dated the Nazis and do not consider
it a Nazi symbol. One thing most of them have
learned -- and have taught to me -- is that
RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE is a key to preventing future
holocausts. Therefore they honour and respect the
religious iconography of others. including the
Jains and the Hindus, who revere the swastika as a
symbol of a symbol of long life, good health, and
good luck, and the special symbol of the Hindu
elephant
headed god Ganesh.
My own mother, a Jew raised in Germany in the early 20th
century, tells me that her family's sun-porch had an inlaid tile design
of swastikas on the floor -- and her mother once told her it was "wrong"
of Hitler to use the symbol as a political emblem. The swastikas were
still there on the floor when she and her family fled Germany to escape.

For more information on the swastika, see Will's Cigarette Card #24: The
Swastika. For more images of good luck swastikas see:

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